Accordingly he moved south from his seat in Edinburgh intent on doling out justice and punishment to those who were of particular notoriety. It is said he had six thousand armed followers.
The history of Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, a power in the Scottish Borders, is well recorded. By subterfuge, some say as the result of a 'loving letter' he was encouraged to wait upon the king at Carlenrig, south of the Borders town of Hawick. There James, incensed by the apparent affluence of the fierce Border Reiver and his twenty-four followers, ordered their execution without trial. Johhnie had fallen into a trap from which there was no way out. He pleaded with the rash, impetuous youth of a king but to no avail. He resigned himself to his fate but not before saying in the Border Ballad which tells his story:-
'To seek hot water beneath cold ice,
Surely it is a great folly-
I have asked grace at a graceless face,
But there is none for my men and me!'
He and twenty-three of his followers were strung up on the spot. The twenty-fourth was burned alive in vengeance for the burning of a poor women and her son in which he was the instigator.
In time, when maturity replaced the rashness and callowness of youth, James would regret his actions at Carlenrig. He lost any allegiance the Armstrongs of Liddesdale had for the Scottish monarchy on that fateful day in July 1530. In 1542 at the rout of the Scottish army by the English at the Battle of Solway Moss, the Armstrongs withheld their support for the Scottish cause, even harassed the losers as the terrified remnants of the Scottish army fled the field of conflict and headed back north.
James died shortly afterwards. He was about thirty years old.
Before he arrived in Carlenrig in July 1530, James V was determined to mete out the royal justice against two other Border Reivers of particular re-known. One was Adam Scott of Tushielaw, known as the 'King of Thieves'. Not only did he reive both far and wide; he was feared for the way in which he summarily despatched his adversaries. He strung them up from the trees which surrounded his tower at Tushielaw.
He was soon apprehended by the army of James V, and, it is said, hanged from the very trees from which had swung in their death throes many of the Reivers who had contested his bloody and audacious raids.
The other Border Reiver who was the subject of James' ferocity was William Cockburne of Henderland ( near St. Mary's Loch). It is said he was hanged over the doorway of his Tower there.
Sir Walter Scott tells us in the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' that 'in a deserted burial place, which once surrounded the chapel of the castle (the Tower of Henderland), the monument of Cockburne and his lady are still shown. It is a large stone broken in three parts; but some armorial bearings may yet be seen and the following inscription is still legible, though defaced:-
HERE LYES PERYS OF COKBURNE AND HIS WYFE MARJORY.
The table-topped grave can still be seen on a little knoll of a hill in what was the churchyard of the Tower.
Following the deaths of Johnnie Armstrong and his followers emotions ran high and truth ran second best to fact; an approach handed down to the writers of Scottish Border history of the nineteenth century, including the rightly well-respected Sir Walter.
Perys Cokburne was not the William Cockburne who suffered at the hands of JamesV. Neither Adam Scott 'King of Thieves' nor William Cockburne were summarily despatched within the confines of their own Towers. Rather they were taken to Edinburgh, tried and beheaded.
Robert Pitcairn (1797 – 1855) compiled the documents which recorded the fate of the Border Reivers who were tried and executed. The compilation is known as 'Pitcairn's Criminal Trials'.
For 1530 he records the following:-
William Cokburne of Henderland, Convicted (in presence of the King) of High Treason committed by him, in bringing Alexander Forester and his son, Englishmen, to the plundering of Archibald Someruile: And for treasonably bringing certain Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome: And for common Theft, common Reset of Theft, outputting and inputting thereof – SENTENCE. For which causes and crimes he has forfeited his life, lands, and goods, moveable and immoveable; which shall be escheated to the King.- BEHEADED.
ADAM SCOTT of Tuschelaw, convicted of art and part of theftuously taking blackmail from the time of his entry within the castle of Edinburgh, in ward, of John Browne in Hopprow; and of art and part of theftuously taking blackmail of Andrew Thorbrand and William his brother: and of theftuously taking blackmail from the poor tenants of Hopcailzow: and of theftuously taking blackmail from the tenants of Eschescheill: BEHEADED.
Cockburne, it would seem, was convicted for his alliance with Englishmen which, under the Border Law, was treason, Scott for blackmail which was probably the least of his crimes.
And what of the Border Widow?
One of the most evocative of the Border Ballads is that of the 'Lament of the Border Widow'. It has always been associated with the death of William Cockeburne following his capture by James V. Although this is historically impossible, it admirably portrays the emotion, the futility, isolation and sorrow which followed many a death in the days of the Reivers.
A BORDER WIDOW'S LAMENT.
My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' lilye flour (all) (flower)
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.
There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away;
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight. (broke)
He slew my knight, to me sae dear; (so)
He slew my knight and poin'd his gear; ( escheated to the king)
My servants all did life for flee,
And left me in extremitie.
I sew'd his sheet, making my mane, (grieving and crying)
I watch'd the corpse myself alane (alone)
I watch'd his body night and day;
No living creature came that way.
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat; (moved, went)
I digged a grave, and laid him in,
And happ'd him with the sod sae green. (covered) (so)
But think not ye my heart was sair, (sore)
When I laid the moule on his yellow hair? (soil)
O think na ye my heart was wae (weary)
When I turn'd about, away to gae? (go)
Nae living man I'll love again, (no)
Since that my lovely knight was slain,
Wi' a lock of his yellow hair,
I'll chain my heart for evermair.
In the reiving times, the 13th to the 17th centuries, the Scottish English Border was a land in turmoil. Endless confrontation and bloody feud spawned a people who were hard both mentally and physically. The 'Lament of the Border Widow' shows another side of the relentless strife which dominated the land of which little is said. Sadness and sorrow followed in its wake.
Scottish Monsters
Nessie! She has to be one of the worlds most famous monsters. Rival to Bigfoot and the Kraken there can't be many people in the English speaking world who don't know who she is. But what of the other Scottish monsters? Many others have been told to roam our land; from kelpies, mermaids and fairy folk to the dreaded Linton Worm. Hear about the many strange creatures that populated Scotland through the mists of time.
Morag The Monster
By Rodger Moffet
"As we were sailing down the loch in my boat we were suddenly disturbed and frightened by a thing that surfaced behind us. We watched it catch us up then bump into the side of the boat, the impact sent a kettle of water I was heating onto the floor. I ran into the cabin to turn the gas off as the water had put the flame out. Then I came out of the cabin to see my mate trying to fend the beast off with an oar, to me he was wasting his time. Then when I seen the oar break I grabbed my rifle and quickly putting a bullet in it fired in the direction of the beast.. Then I watched it slowly sink away from the boat and that was the last I seed of it."
This startling account of an encounter with a strange creature was written in 1969 by William Simpson
You may be forgiven for assuming that this was one of the many tales written about 'Nessie', the Loch Ness Monster, but you would be mistaken, what many people don't know is that Nessie is not alone, she in fact has a sister called Morag. Now having a sister called Morag isn't unusual, I've got one but mine doesn't live in a loch and attack small boats!
Morag (the monster) lives in Loch Morar an inland loch around 70 miles to the southwest of Loch Ness. Separated from the sea by only a quarter of a mile it is much smaller than Loch Ness at only 11 Miles long by around a mile and a half wide. Nevertheless its a large enough body of water to hold a secret. Several accounts exist of strange disappearances on the loch, the cold water can swallow a body never to be given up. Recently large bones were pulled up from a spot near the centre of the loch. At first they were thought to be the bones on Morag (or another of her relatives) but investigation found them to be from a deer. Intriguing how a deer could find itself washed into the centre of the loch, maybe it had come down to the loch side for a drink only to be snatched from the bank by Morag!
Sightings of Morag are rare and photographs rarer still, partly this is due to the situation of the loch, far more remote than Loch Ness with only a small single track road for access at one side, also the tourist industry has not capitalised on Morag they way it has with Nessie so less numbers at the loch lead to less sightings.
Although there had long been a tradition that something resided in the loch, recorded sightings only began in the 1800s and have numbered around 30-40, however many of these sightings had multiple witnesses and were far more dramatic as the account above can testify.
From the sightings so far the creature does appear very similar to Nessie, having a small head, long neck and large body similar to a plesiosaur but with the ability to raise its head out of the water. Another sighting in 1968 by John MacVarish, barman at the Morar Hotel confirms this:
"I saw this thing coming. I thought it was a man standing in a boat but as it got nearer I saw it was something coming out of the water. I tried to get up close to it with the outboard out of the water and what I saw was a long neck five or six feet out of the water with a small head on it, dark in colour, coming quite slowly down the loch. When I got to about 300 yards of it, it turned off into the deep and just settled down slowly into the loch out of sight. The neck was about one and a half feet in diameter and tapered up to between ten inches and a foot. I never saw any features, no eyes or anything like that. It was a snake like head, very small compared to the size of the neck-flattish, a flat type of head. It seemed to have very smooth skin but at 300 yards it's difficult to tell. It was very dark, nearly black. It was 10am, dead calm, no wind, brilliant sunshine. I saw it for about ten minuets travelling very slowly: it didn't alter its angle to the water. It looked as if it was paddling itself along. There was very little movement from the water, just a small streak from the neck. I couldn't really see what was propelling it but I think it was something at the sides rather than behind it."
The number of encounters was such that the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau expanded its search to include Loch Morar in February of 1970. Several studies have been undertaken, however she is a far more elusive creature than her sister and very little evidence has been recorded by the teams, nevertheless the eyewitness accounts exist; from small boys on holiday from Yorkshire up to Sir John Hope (Lord Glendevon) a privy councillor and undersecretary of state for Scotland.
So how did Morag come to find her way into the loch? Well as many theories exist as there are sightings. If her ancestors came into the loch from the sea this would have been possible as sea levels were high enough at times for the loch to have been easily reached from the sea, there is also a theory that some mysterious underground tunnel exists between Loch Ness and Loch Morar both of which lie on the same geological fault line known as the Great Glen. It could be that Morag and Nessie are one and the same or at least they pop up and down to visit for tea and a chat now and again. Maybe swapping stories about how many fishermen they've had 'keech their breeks' that week!
Other Scottish Lochs are also said to harbour strange creatures: Among these are Loch Lochy, Loch Arkaig, Loch Oich, Loch Linnhe, Loch Quoich, and Loch Shiel. Although Nessie is by far and away our most famous 'beastie' Morag deserves recognition too. Just remember the next time you are planning a wee paddle while on holiday in the highlands in the crystal clear Loch you have just discovered, that might not just be a few wee fishes nibbling your toes!
The Fear Liath
By Rodger Moffet
The year was 1890 and John Norman Collie, a respected scientist and explorer was walking in the Cairngorms. This area now popular with tourists, mountaineers and skiers was an even more desolate and unexplored spot back then. As he approached the summit of Ben MacDhui, The highest peak in this range and the second highest in Scotland (1309 meters or 4296 feet) he was enveloped by a thick mist that reduced his visibility. While in this eerie mist he had an experience that so terrified him that he did not speak a word of it until 35 years later!